Aftermath
by teenage-dirtbag
Summary: Meredith helps Cristina cope with Burke’s sudden departure, while at the same time reflecting on her own life.
1. Aftermath

**Title:** Aftermath  
**Author:** teenage-dirtbag  
**Summary:** Meredith helps Cristina cope with Burke's sudden departure, while at the same time reflecting on her own life.  
**Parings:** Meredith/Derek, Cristina/Burke  
**Rating:** T

…

Meredith, moaning grumpily, hit the snooze button on the alarm clock. She got up, her eyes half closed, and fumbled for the doorknob to her bathroom. A few minutes later, she emerged, organizing her thoughts and duties for the day. As she stepped outside the hallway, she bumped into Alex, who looked like he didn't get much sleep.

"Sorry," he mumbled before heading towards the bathroom. Meredith shook her head, concerned. As she reached the stairs, the delicious smell of baking muffins wafted upstairs. She shook her head again; Izzie was upset as well. Three glasses of milk stood at the counter as she went inside the kitchen; a basket of freshly baked muffins beside them. Meredith took a small sip of milk and dumped the muffin basket in a brown paper bag.

"Everything's here." Izzie said, handing Meredith another paper bag.

"Thanks, Iz." Meredith replied, smiling. She took another sip of milk and grabbed one of the corn muffins that littered the countertop. Just then, Alex stepped into the kitchen. Izzie glanced up at him, smiling sympathetically, although he didn't seem to notice. He took one of the blueberry muffins and started chewing on it, his eyes having that faraway look Meredith and Izzie noticed every time he was quiet.

"Have some milk." Izzie offered, moving the full glass closer. He incoherently said a thank you before gulping down half of the contents. A few minutes passed by as they ate in silence.

"I need to go now." Meredith said, glancing on the wall clock. She looked at Alex and Izzie, still eating quietly, and sighed. She grabbed the paper bags and her car keys and headed out the door, ready to drive to Cristina's apartment.

…

Cristina Yang stared up at the ceiling, feeling numb. She'd been crying over the past few days, and Bailey, concerned, gave her time off to rest. She didn't complain. She heard the front door open, and she directed her eyes to the living room of the small apartment she used to share with Burke. Tears stung her eyes at the very memory of him, and she let them flow freely down her cheek. Meredith peered inside the bedroom, seeing Cristina lying down.

"Come on, Cristina." Meredith said, walking to her and helping her up. "It's time for breakfast."

Like a sick patient, Cristina willingly obliged to Meredith's commands. She ate the muffins and the meal that Izzie prepared for her, and drank the supplements that Alex got from the pharmacy. Meredith watched her solemnly, wondering if Cristina would ever get over this. Seeing her friend so broken prompted her to fix her life, to mend the brokenness inside of her. She remembered the third night after the wedding…

_Cold, Meredith shivered as she knocked forcefully on Derek's trailer. She tightened her jacket as she heard shuffling sounds and the opening of a door. Derek looked at her, confused. "Can I come in?" She asked. Derek didn't say a word, but opened the door for her. He just stared at her, seemingly unable to utter any words. _

"_Everyone's sad. Cristina's sad because her wedding got called off and Burke left, Bailey's sad because she lost chief resident, Izzie's sad because, well I don't really know, maybe weddings remind her of Denny. Alex's sad because Ava left, George's sad because he failed the intern exams, the chief is sad because he just lost a baby, Addison and Mark are sad because they lost the race for chief." Meredith gazed at him warmly. "I'm sad because my real mommy and my fake mommy's dead, my real daddy hates me and my fake daddy's the chief of surgery. You're sad because of me,"_

"_Meredith—"_

"_Everyone's sad right now. But you want to know what makes me smile despite all of this sadness? You. I love you, and I'm sorry if I made you think that you were losing me. Because you're not." Meredith's voice was breaking now, and she held on to the kitchen counter for support. "You are the only good thing in my life right now. And I'll always be here. But," Derek bowed his head, expecting a catch. "I need to take care of my friends right now. It's not fair that I'm happy with you while they're sad. They helped me when I was sad. They were there when you left me. Cristina, especially. Now she needs me, because she has no one else. They all need me."_

_Meredith caressed Derek's face and smiled at him lovingly. "I love you, and I'll always be here. But you have to let me take care of them first, okay? You're not losing me. Because frankly, I won't be able to handle everything without you here." _

_Derek smiled tenderly at Meredith, pulling her into a deep embrace and leaning in for a passionate kiss. _

…Meredith smiled to herself, looking away. She watched Cristina again, who was staring at her with a curious expression while chewing on a muffin.

"Izzie baked again." Cristina said, which startled Meredith. Cristina rarely spoke after Burke left, crying instead to convey her emotions. "What's wrong?"

Meredith didn't want to burden her with their other friends' problems. "I don't know." She answered anyway.

"Oh." Cristina said, before taking another bite. The front door suddenly creaked open, and Cristina looked at it with a horrified expression. Meredith turned around and saw Dr. Burke standing there, holding his coat and a large, leather bag. She looked back at Cristina, whose face now showed anger and rage. Burke stood there, trying to understand what was going on.

"Cristina," He started.

"Cristina," Meredith said worriedly. She offered her hand to Cristina.

"I'll be fine, Meredith. Please go." She whispered, and Meredith walked slowly towards the door, closing it behind her.

…

"Cristina—"

"No!" Cristina said, her pent up anger releasing itself. "You walked out on me during our wedding day. I come back here, and find you gone. You left me." Burke opened his mouth to speak, but Cristina cut him off again. "What more do you want? I moved in. I helped you cover up your hand tremors. I agreed to marry you. I agreed to a traditional wedding. I agreed to wear a white dress. I became less selfish to please your mother. I even let her shave off my eyebrows! I struggled to write wedding vows. I gave you everything," fresh tears spilled out of Cristina's eyes, "and you couldn't give me what I wanted."

"What did you want?" Burke asked.

"You," She breathed. "I wanted _you_. I sacrificed so much, and I didn't care, because it would get me you. And you left me."

Burke took a step closer. "But I'm here now. I—"

"No. Just," she said, walking towards the door, "no."

Cristina took a deep breath, feeling lighter for the first time in a week. She let the tears fall as she walked out, seeing Meredith leaning beside the car anxiously. Meredith stood up when she saw Cristina, and took her in a sisterly embrace. Cristina sighed heavily, leaning her head on Meredith's shoulder. She knew things were far from okay. She was angry and sad and still hopelessly in love with Burke at the same time. But all that mattered now was that he'd come home. She knew that things would eventually get better because he was here again. She looked at the car, then at Meredith.

"Come on," Cristina said, wiping the tears from her face. "We're going to be late for work."

…

**A/N:**** This two-part story will center on Meredith and Cristina and how they deal with things, since Meredith and Cristina's finale sucked. We fans can do nothing but write fanfiction and hope for the better. PLEASE REVIEW:D**


	2. Dealing

Alex sat, slumped, at one of the benches between the lockers. He was carelessly tying on his shoelaces. Izzie was fixing her hair obsessively, tying it and re-tying it and glancing at Alex, trying to extract some sort of opinion from him. He would just grunt and nod and say her name, then continue on tying his laces.

"Okay, stop it." Izzie said, finally settling on a ponytail. She kicked the bench.

"What?" Alex asked, looking up. Izzie noticed his shoes were still untied. She sat down and tied it for him; Alex just stared into space, not really minding, thinking.

"Stop being sad." Izzie said, emphasizing every word, hoping that if she said it out loud he would follow.

"You baked enough muffins to feed a small country." Alex stated. "Who's upset?"

"Can't a woman bake for her friends?" Izzie scoffed, standing up and shutting her locker door. "You're getting that look again."

"What look?" Alex asked.

"That look. That faraway look Meredith and I notice." Izzie replied.

"Watching me now, are you?" Alex asked, trying to sound conceited. It was like he was saying it in a singsong manner.

"You can't even act like an asshole." Izzie rolled her eyes. "You're upset."

"I'm not sad." Alex said, his tone of voice giving him away

"Shut up!" Izzie said, suddenly annoyed. "You're sad! So stop it!"

Alex sighed. "What's wrong, Iz?"

"Denial. You're in denial. Stop being in denial!" Izzie said, sitting down beside him again. Alex tried to think of something to stop Izzie's ranting, but his mind wasn't in the condition for human empathy. All he conditioned himself to do was practice medicine and breathe. He tried patting her shoulder, awkwardly it turned out, when she burst into sobs.

"I'm sorry!" Izzie said, leaning on Alex's shoulder. "It's PMS." He put his arm around Izzie, comforted by the warmth of their physical closeness. He sighed, remembering the empty hospital room on the surgical wing, and the woman who used to occupy it. Just then, Meredith and Cristina walked into the locker room, which caused Alex to sit up and Izzie to raise her head, and upon seeing Cristina, wipe her eyes hastily to remove all traces of tears.

"You're back!" Izzie said, trying to be cheerful.

"You okay?" Alex asked.

"Meredith, make them stop acting like someone close to me died." Cristina said, grimacing. "Or maybe they did." She whispered to herself. "I'm going to change into my scrubs." Cristina gathered her scrubs and walked towards the corner of the room. Meredith walked towards Izzie and Alex, who were now eyeing her knowingly, wanting to know what was going on with Cristina.

"Burke's back." Meredith whispered, as the three of them huddled into a small circle. "No questions, act like you don't know." The two nodded in reply.

"Okay, I'm ready to cut something." Cristina announced, coming out of her corner, clad in her blue scrubs. "Does neuro have any surgeries today? Meredith?"

"I don't know." Meredith answered, getting her scrubs. "I'll ask Derek."

"Right." Cristina said, and Meredith suddenly wished she didn't say it. "Karev, the gyno squad up for one more member?"

"Addison left for LA yesterday." Alex replied, which caused his mood to further decline. "The new neonatal attending is not coming until next week." He mumbled grumpily in a barely audible voice.

"Okay." Cristina said. "Maybe Sloan's got something for me."

"Don't," Alex and Izzie said at the same time, having been under Mark Sloan's tutelage. He seems to forget that Seattle Grace is a teaching hospital, not a your-interns-fetch-everything hospital.

"Maybe the ortho doc has some cases for me." Cristina said, which caused Izzie's face to contort into a hostile grimace.

"Okay guys," Meredith said, glancing at her friends nervously, stopping them from causing any more damage. "It's time for rounds." Alex and Izzie got up, stethoscopes around their necks, trying to push their personal issues on the back of their minds to stop them from affecting their work. Cristina frowned.

"Where's Bailey?" She asked.

"Uh," Meredith started, "Bailey doesn't really help us do our rounds anymore."

"Oh." Cristina said, realizing how far she'd been away from the hospital. "Yeah, okay. Let's go."

…

"Here," Derek said, handing Meredith a cup of steaming coffee while Cristina, Alex and Izzie were performing tests on a cancer patient. Startled, Meredith dropped the chart she was holding in her hand. Her eyes darted to the coffee cup, to Derek, and to the room where her three friends were still preoccupied with the uncooperative patient.

"Thanks." Meredith said after a few seconds, taking a small sip.

"How's your day coming along?" Derek asked brightly, planting a kiss on Meredith's cheek.

"Don't let them see you do that." Meredith warned, hastily moving away from Derek.

"Why?" Derek asked.

"Because they're dark and twisty." Meredith explained. "Scary and damaged." Derek looked at her as if she were insane. "We can't be happy around them while they're me, about a few months ago."

"While they're you?" Derek asked. "Uh-huh. And when can we be happy?"

"Well," Meredith giggled. In the corner of her eye, Meredith saw Cristina move towards the door. "Go. Now." She said, pushing Derek away.

"Can't we dope him up to shut him up?" Cristina asked. She saw the cup of coffee and got it, taking a sip. "Where'd you get the juju?" She asked.

"Intern." Meredith said, glancing at Derek walking up the stairs.

"We can take advantage of them?" Cristina asked eagerly. Meredith was about to answer when she saw Preston Burke come out of an elevator. Panicked, she pushed Cristina to the patient's room.

"I'll ask for morphine." Meredith said, "Now go run the tests." Closing the door just in time, Meredith turned around to see a confused cardio thoracic surgeon in front of her.

"So what, I can't see her now?" Burke asked. Meredith took him by the arm and dragged him away from the room.

"She wouldn't leave the apartment, not even to cut something up. I had to visit her every few hours just to make sure she eats. All she does is sleep and eat and cry. So yes, I think I have the authority to say that you can't see her." Meredith answered, infuriated, while keeping her voice down.

"I am still the attending around here." Burke said, surprised at Meredith's audacity.

"And you are also the selfish bastard who walked out on my best friend during her wedding." Meredith turned around and headed into the patient's room to make sure Cristina doesn't come out while Burke was still walking the halls.

…

For the rest of the day, Meredith made sure that Cristina didn't so much as see Burke's shadow. She would let her scrub in surgeries, avoiding the ones concerned with the heart, and would not leave her side, even if she only went to the bathroom. She also asked for Alex and Izzie's help, letting them be the watch, making sure that Burke got no where near Cristina. The risk in the surgical floor was too much, so Meredith decided that they should spend the next hours in the pit. A shrieking woman was brought in by paramedics, her clothes soaked through with blood, as Cristina and Meredith tried to help her with her pain.

"28 year old Caucasian, extensive abdominal injuries, her left leg is broken. We administered a few doses of morphine to help with the pain." The paramedic said to Meredith, filling in the necessary details. "The woman and her husband got into a car accident, they slammed into a brick wall. The husband's dead, his chest was sliced through by the metal and glass. We think that the woman is three months pregnant."

"Where is he? Where's Philip?" The woman asked, crying.

"Ma'am, you have to calm down. They haven't brought your husband in yet." Cristina said, trying to wipe off some of the blood from the woman's face. Meredith came over with a pair of scissors to cut her clothes up and expose the injuries.

"Dammit." Meredith swore as she saw the damage to the woman's body. She obviously needed a cardiac surgeon, and, seeing the look on Cristina's face, she guessed that her friend has figured this out too. "Page Dr. Karev and Dr. Stevens, stat. And bring more gauze." Meredith instructed the ER nurse, who complied right away. She pulled Cristina away from the woman.

"She's looking for her husband." Cristina said.

"He's dead." Meredith replied. "Cristina, if you don't want this case, I can—"

"No," Cristina answered, after a moment. "It's fine. It's work."

"Hey," Alex said, taking deep breaths, having ran all the way down. Izzie followed, still holding an empty pack of epidural. "Whoa." He said when he saw the woman.

"That woman needs," Izzie looked at Meredith, who understood the look she cast. Meredith nodded.

"She's three months pregnant." Meredith said, and Alex immediately went beside the woman, taking the gauze and removing as much blood from the womb as possible. "We need to get her into an OR now." Meredith bent over Izzie, seeing that Cristina was preoccupied helping Alex remove shards of glass from her stomach. "Get Cristina away from here." She turned to a nurse. "Page Dr. Burke."

"Help me with this, Cristina." Izzie said, wheeling the woman into an elevator. "Alex is going to page the chief, the neonatal specialist isn't here yet." Cristina turned to Meredith, who was busy securing information from the paramedic. She pushed the gurney into an elevator.

"We had a fight," the woman said, still crying, "and we just hit the wall! I, I, I don't know," Izzie and Cristina looked at each other. "I love him, and we had a fight, I left, he came to get me, and my baby," the woman looked at her stomach. "Is my baby alright? How's my baby? Where's Philip?"

"Please calm down." Izzie said. "We're going to get you to an OR, and we're going to save you and your baby."

"Where's Philip?" The woman asked.

Cristina, silent after the woman's story, turned to her. "We don't know yet." She lied.

"He's dead, isn't he? I was calling for him in the car, he wasn't moving," the woman continued on crying, "we had a fight, he didn't even know that I still loved him, and now he's gone."

"Ma'am," Cristina said, her breath hitched in her throat. "We will let you know as soon as we hear from the paramedics, okay?"

Dr. Burke, who looked startled with Cristina there, was there when the elevator door opened. She avoided his gaze, and Izzie spoke up immediately, "She's suffered extensive damages to her abdomen and chest. I'll scrub in."

"I need two more hands for this." Burke said, hoping Cristina will take the bait.

"The woman's pregnant. I'll page Alex; I'm sure his training with Dr. Montgomery will come in handy." Izzie said, looking at Cristina, hoping that she'll leave.

"Dr. Ya—"

"I'll check with Meredith in the pit, see what happened to her husband." Cristina said, cutting Burke off, and making a dash to the elevator.

"I left," the woman wailed, "if I didn't leave, he wouldn't be gone. I shouldn't have left." She turned to Burke. "I left, I shouldn't have. Please save my baby."

…

A few hours later, Meredith and Cristina were waiting for the woman to come out of the OR. They were watching in the gallery, seeing Alex suture up the womb, with Addison giving instructions through the phone, and the Chief helping out.

"You can't protect me forever." Cristina finally said, after a long silence and after pondering on the woman's situation. "I appreciate what you've been doing for me, Meredith. But you have to let me handle this on my own."

Meredith turned to her. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Cristina answered.

…

Burke went inside the on-call room, following a cryptic page. He was tired from the surgery, successful after he managed to stop the bleeding and save the baby. He pushed the door open, surprised to see Cristina waiting for him inside. He closed the door, hesitant to go near her.

"You can't expect us to go back to normal just like that after what you did." Cristina said, refusing to look at him. "I'll be moving out of the apartment."

"What's going to happen to us?" Burke asked.

"Right now, there is no us." Cristina replied. "There's just you and me. You are my colleague; you are my boss. Nothing more."

"Look at me, Cristina." Burke said in a stern voice. Cristina continued to stare at the wall, her eyes filling with tears. "Look at me." She turned her eyes towards him, and every word she said moments before threatened to take themselves back. "I love you."

Cristina's face softened, and she stood up, went to him, and caressed his face. "Dr. Burke." She said, as a form of goodbye. She went out of the on-call room, wiping her face. He was home, and that was all that mattered.

…

**A/N:** **Fin. Yey! I just wrote it in the way I want it to play out in the series, and I wanted it to end in a bittersweet note, knowing that the BurkeCristina happy ending can't happen too soon (that just wouldn't be realistic.) I played out Meredith the superfriend in this fic, and I wanted to show how much she truly cared for Cristina. Hope you liked it! **


End file.
